200,000: Celebrating a Milestone

One Saturday morning in the summer of 2005, I began this blog thinking that I had something to important to say. All I knew was that I would name it after an early-eighties pop music album from an influential synth band, just because it sounded profound yet cool. It took a while to find my voice, writing about a variety of topics, before finding a niche exploring the intersection between politics, economics and architecture. I soon recruited fellow writer Relievedebtor on this little endeavor, who provided his valuable philosophical and theological insights and in the process invited readers to learn more about all things related to the built environment. In time the content grew and started to inadvertently fulfill the implied meanings of the blog's name.

Today (April 4th, 2011) Architecture + Morality will have welcomed its 200,000th visitor. While other more popular architecture an religion blogs have attracted far more, it's no small accomplishment either.  This blog started during what I call blogging's "heyday", when everyone believed they were the next great online journalist by writing a popular blog.  With a variety of free online software (e.g. Blogger, Wordpress, etc.) they could bypass the established online magazines and potentially draw far more readers than even the old established newspapers. Soon enough, it became obvious to most people that this was hard work and pretty time consuming, and many naturally gave up not long after their blog's debut. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter would later offer many of the same benefits of blogging, but without the need to consistently deliver quality content on a timely basis. Since neither Relievedebtor nor I know how to make clever pithy statements nor do we like talking about ourselves, the traditional blog format still remains our preferred outlet in sharing what we're thinking about when we don't find ourselves consumed by the non-stop demands of daily life. We are proud that this blog continues to be updated, albeit less frequently, and that many people come to read old posts and find them still relevant. We are also humbled that our blog has become a kind of resource for students, newspapers, magazines, and online encyclopedias.

To mark this milestone, I've updated the look of the site, changing the graphics while adopting an updated blogger template. The most important change to take note of is the Twitter feed on the top right portion of the window. I am constantly browsing articles that interest me and that I feel are worth sharing to our readers. While waiting for the next big post on the blog, I recommend following @archmorality on Twitter in the meantime and checking regularly. Twitter allows me to catalogue articles and websites that I might later use to help me write for the blog, and it's really the best way to track what I'm thinking at the moment. We also encourage you to share our articles to your friends by clicking on the buttons below each post.

As you may have noticed, Relievedebtor and I have found it more difficult to find the time to write pieces for this blog, even though it's still one of the more enjoyable things we do. We are consumed by our growing households, our professions and our ommunities. We will continue to post when we have the chance, so long as the topics and ideas we come up with are worth the time and patience of our wonderful readers.  Many times we express views that run counter to the orthodoxies of our profession (architecture and religious pastorship). Even so, we appreciate the countless number of readers who disagree with much of what we believe but still read our articles.

It's been an interesting little side project, and we look forward to sharing more with our readers in the years to come.  Six years ago I would have never envisioned the breadth and attention Architecture + Morality now enjoys, especially considering how little we have promoted it and how infrequently we contribute to it.  We are grateful for your comments, and we look forward to fostering a meaningful dialogue with our readers on topics regarding architecture, morality and everything in between.